New Nationally Representative Poll Reveals The U.S. Healthcare System Is Failing According To 114 Million Americans
Ever since the 1920s, when the cost of hospital services began to increase, public dissatisfaction with the U.S. healthcare system has only grown. Though new data released this week by the polling organization West Health and Gallup paints an even more damning picture.
A nationally representative sample of over five thousand and five hundred Americans was surveyed for the 2022 West Health-Gallup Healthcare in America Report.
The survey participants were tasked with providing a letter grade for specific aspects of the healthcare system– such as accessibility, affordability, equity, and quality of care– as well as one overall grade.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, Americans across the board awarded the U.S. healthcare system with very low marks.
First, nearly four in ten Americans assigned a poor or failing grade (D or F) to care access– with Asian, Black, and Hispanic Americans and women being the most critical.
In fact, over forty percent of people in each of these groups assigned “access” a D or F letter grade as compared to about one-third of White Americans and men.
Equity, which refers to each U.S. citizen’s ability to get quality healthcare regardless of background, also received damning marks.
About sixty-six percent of Black Americans and sixty-four percent of Asian Americans assigned this pillar a D or F. Meanwhile, fifty-five percent of Hispanic Americans and fifty-three percent of White Americans agreed.
The next item on the docket, affordability, received the most failing grades– with seventy-five percent of Americans, or about one hundred and ninety million U.S. adults, awarding an average grade of D-minus.
Pitchayaarch – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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Virtually no one gave the healthcare system’s affordability an A grade (one percent), and only six percent of Americans awarded affordability a B grade. C’s were also few and far between, with only nineteen percent of adults giving affordability this middle-ground grade.
Still, Americans’ views on the quality of care might come as a shock since this area did receive more positive grading. Forty-seven percent of U.S. adults awarded care quality an A or B. However, this only helped push the average grade to a C-plus.
So, these four areas combined earned the American healthcare system an overall average grade of C-minus– with forty-four percent of U.S. adults awarding poor or failing grades of D or F.
And if these ratings are unsurprising to you, Timothy Lash, the president of West Health, agrees.
“After years of higher prices, growing inequities, skipping treatments, getting sicker, or borrowing money to pay medical bills, it’s no wonder so many Americans view the health system so poorly,” Lash said.
Additional findings from the survey only underpin these realities. For example, a whopping sixty percent of Americans reported that cost is a significant factor when deciding to receive a recommended medication or medical procedure.
“When members of my family have needed surgeries or medications, they have to really consider how much medical debt they’re willing to go into,” reported Stef Schloo, a twenty-eight-year-old survey respondent from Pennsylvania.
Plus, seventeen percent of Americans revealed that they have had to cut back on health care services just to pay for other household necessities.
And tragically, fifty percent of the U.S. adult population– or about one hundred and twenty-nine people– are afraid that they will not be able to afford healthcare as they get older.
Now, though, these responses should hopefully help inform America’s next step in battling this healthcare crisis.
“While America’s grading of the U.S. health care system is troubling, it provides a roadmap for health care systems and policymakers to invest and fix areas with the greatest impact to shift sentiment,” explained Dan Witters, the Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index Research Director.
“What we must remember is that there are actual people behind these grades and that too many Americans are persistently struggling to access and afford quality care.”
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